Manual Roaming
US: A method of enabling cellular telephone
customers to use their mobile phones outside of their home region by requiring
the subscriber first to register with the out of region wireless carrier. (Compare "automatic roaming")
McCaw Consent Decree
US: The McCaw Consent Decree is the proposed
consent decree filed on July 15, 1994, in the antitrust action United States
v. AT&T Corp. and McCaw Cellular Communications, INC., Civil Action No.
94-01555, in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.
Such term includes any stipulation that the parties will abide by the terms
of such proposed consent decree until it is entered and any order entering such
proposed consent decree. [See also CI '96 Act Reference VI(601)(e)(3)]
Message Telephone Service (MTS)
US: Ordinary public switched telephone service.
Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA)
US: Geographic areas designated by the US
Bureau of Census for purposes of collecting and analyzing census data. MSAs
encompass cities and designated surrounding regions, the size of which is determined
by the number of inhabitants residing with its boundaries. For example, the
largest MSA according to 1994 figures was Los Angeles, California with a population
of 9,150,000; the 100th largest MSA was Fort Wayne, Indiana with a population
of 469,000.
Modification of Final Judgment (MFJ)
US: The 1982 settlement of the antitrust
suit brought against AT&T by the U.S. Department of Justice in 1974. Officially,
this settlement modified a 1956 consent decree (antitrust settlement) originally
referred to as the 'Final Judgment' against AT&T, from which the name 'Modification
of Final Judgment' is derived.
Under the MFJ settlement, AT&T was
required to divest its 22 bell operating companies (BOCs)
and was permitted to enter essentially any business it chose (except electronic
publishing over its own infrastructure
until 1989). The BOCs were prohibited from providing information
services, interexchange (long
distance) service, and from manufacturing telecommunications
equipment, and were required
to provide equal
access to all interexchange
carriers for the origination
and termination of interexchange telephone calls and information services.
Multichannel Multipoint Distribution Services (MMDS)
US: A "wireless" cable television service
that uses microwave frequencies to transmit video programming to subscribers
equipped with receiving antennas.
Multichannel Video Programming Distributor (MVPD)
US: A term used by the FCC to refer to a
variety of distributors of video programming, including cable TV systems, direct-to-home
(DTH)
satellite systems (including direct broadcast satellite (DBS) services and Home
Satellite Dishes (HSD)), wireless cable systems
using the multichannel multipoint distribution service (MMDS), instructional television fixed service (ITFS), local
multipoint distribution service
(LMDS), satellite master antenna television (SMATV) systems, and open video systems (OVS).
Must Carry Requirement
US: A requirement contained in the Communications
Act of 1934
under which commercial broadcast television stations may request mandatory carriage
of their programming over cable television networks within their local market
areas. Noncommercial television stations may also request carriage if they meet
certain legal requirements.
A cable TV system with 12 or fewer activated
channels is generally required tocarry at least three qualified local commercial
television stations. Systems with more than 12 usable activated channels
must carry the signals of local commercial television stations, up to one-third
of the total number of activated channels on their systems. Cable
systems are obliged to carry
qualified local noncommercial educational television stations according
to a different formula based upon the cable system's number of usable activated
channels. [see Communications Act of 1934, Section
614 (Carriage of Local Commercial Television Signals)
andSection
615 (Carriage of Noncommercial Educational Television).]